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NEW BOOK · SIMON A. WILLIAMS
The Truth Behind Welsh Myths and Legends
Wales is small. Its mythology, and the Mabinogion at the centre of it, is enormous. This book sets out why.
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Paperback · £12.99 | Kindle also available
WHAT THIS BOOK REVEALS
Every fairy, every death omen, every cursing well and mine spirit reads here as a working solution to a real problem
How ordinary people survived illness, conflict, grief, and a landscape that could kill without warning.
01 — THE FAIRIES
The fairies were not charming sprites
The Tylwyth Teg, Wales's fairy folk, functioned as a social technology. The case made in this book is that by blaming misfortune on the Fair Family rather than a human neighbour, Welsh communities may have avoided the witch trials that devastated England and Scotland. While thousands were executed across the border, Wales stayed quiet. The fairies protected the innocent.
02 — THE KNOCKERS
What looked like superstition was practical expertise
Underground, the Coblynau, or Knockers, tapped on mine walls to lead workers towards rich seams of ore. When Welsh miners emigrated to California and Nevada, they took their spirits with them. The Tommyknocker of the American West traces back to a Welsh coal pit.
03 — THE MABINOGION
The great figures of the Mabinogion were never remote gods
Rhiannon, Arianrhod, Brân the Blessed, and Gwyn ap Nudd read here as human experiences at heroic scale: wrongful accusation, personal autonomy, sacrificial leadership, and the wisdom that outlasts death.
04 — DEATH OMENS
Death omens were a community system, not an expression of terror
The Corpse Candle, the Hounds of the Otherworld, and the Gwrach y Rhibyn are treated here as tools that prepared a community's members to face the inevitable with dignity and support.
05 — CANTRE'R GWAELOD
Beneath Cardigan Bay, the drowned kingdom may be real
Fossilised forests and submerged causeways lend weight to what the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod has always claimed. Welsh mythology, on this reading, was geological memory long before it became folklore.
GROUNDED IN HISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The mist has not cleared. The tools still work.
The Truth Behind Welsh Myths and Legends is written for readers of British folklore, Celtic mythology, Welsh history, the Mabinogion, and the enduring power of storytelling.
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Paperback Edition · £12.99 · Kindle also available
